On the 29th March, experts on online safety from ARC Fund held open lessons in front of more than 120 students from the 5th, 6th and 7th grades in the small Bulgarian town of Oryahovo. The lesson called “I want to be popular like the others” was developed within the national campaign for counteracting contemporary models of gender-based violence.
In the beginning of each class, the students discussed what exactly does it mean to be popular and whether popularity online differs from popularity in the real world. According to the students, popular people often possess a talent (they can sing, write, or are good at sports) and are very funny – for these reasons they gather many likes on the Internet too.
In the second part of the class, the students were divided into two groups. One group had to think about what boys of their age do to gain popularity online, and the other did the same for the girls. To visualize their ideas, both groups draw a silhouette of a human body on a large sheet of paper. Then they started to discuss and write down, but only on the left side of the body. They listed what kinds of photos their peers most often upload on the Internet (next to the eyes of the silhouette), what kinds of posts and comments they write (next to its fingers), what kinds of websites and apps they use (next to the legs) and how do they feel when they do all these things (next to the heart). After they finished, they transferred all actions that could potentially put their peers in danger, on the right side of the silhouette.
The result of the exercise were four lists of online activities typical for teenagers – potentially safe and potentially dangerous online behavior of boys and of girls. According to the students, boys like to upload pictures on which they show their muscles, they often publish citations from books or quotes of famous people, they write funny comments and visit social networks, YouTube and Vbox (Bulgarian video sharing website). These activities can be considered safe. Hazardous activities include uploading of selfies taken while the boys are doing something risky or dangerous, , posting of hateful and mean comments and threats, as well as visiting the website for talking to strangers Omegle.
For teenage girls, it is typical to take and upload selfies, including such on which they are doing a so-called duckface, taking pictures of their meals, publishing wise citations. They visit the same websites as the boys do, including Omegle. The most dangerous thing the girls do is publishing naked selfies or selfies on which they wear little clothing. Some girls start to upload such photos as early as the 5th grade, hoping that this would make them more popular both online and in the real life. The students shared that trying to become popular by publishing naked pictures of yourself is more likely to have a negative effect – a girl that publishes naked selfies could become the target of a pedophile, her classmates or friends could make fun of her and she could also embarrass her parents.
At the end of each class, the youngsters were also introduced to the #облечисебе (Dress up) campaign and received fliers and posters, which they promised to put on the walls in their school. They also promised to take many selfies on which they are dressed up with many layers of clothing and upload them with the hashtag! We are impatiently waiting to see those!
You can learn more about the dressed up selfies and the #облечисебе (Dress up) campaign here.
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The project National campaign for counteracting contemporary models of gender-based violence is funded based on a grant agreement № 812108-79/25.08.2015 under Measure 5 – Awareness and sensibility raising campaigns, Program BG 12 Domestic Violence and Gender-Based Violence within NFM 2009-2014
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